In a way, Ainsley Earhardt is one of the more powerful people on the planet. Her role on Fox & Friends affords her the opportunity to shape Donald Trump’s mind for the day. The president’s favorite television show is impressively dumb on a day-to-day basis, but most people with non-smooth brains would be shocked at how bad it is if, I don’t know, they were in the hospital with a broken remote control and had no other recourse but to watch.
Today, Earhardt and the gang are remembering the September 11th with special guest Karl Rove, noted united. Here she is asking him how this country can get back to the place of unity it was following the terrorist attacks without another massive terrorist attack.
“Many people out there didn’t vote for President Bush but they were supportive of our country,” she said. “It didn’t matter if you were a Republican or Democrat. Politics aside, no one was kneeling when the national anthem was played. How do we get back to that without another 9/11?”
Earhardt is correct in that kneeling during the national anthem was less of a thing in late 2001 than it is today, although Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf was sitting for it in 1996. It seems plainly obvious that there’s really no connective tissue between the modern protests against police violence and the climate immediately following 9/11. But hey, it fits neatly into the Fox & Friends Mad Lib stew, specifically boiled to maximize outrage among Boomers whose grandkids don’t respond to their emails.
It should be noted that the feeling of unity, which was real, took a serious detour sometime in March of 2003 and that had nothing to do with people’s behavior during a patriotic song.
